If You Knew You May Understand
by katherinebrittin
Summary: A small fic about Helen Bartlett and her life, if it's not great I will try and improve. It's just a tester for now, to get back into writing.
1. Chapter 1

_No.29 Peveril Street was always a funny place, I don't mean funny ha-ha, funny strange. Things were always happening there, things that I always thought were normal. Joe and Eunice Bevan were two people that I had the displeasure of sharing that house with, it was their house and I was just their child along with Michael, Shelia and Julie. I haven't been in there since I was fifteen; there's been no reason to return, they are no interest to me, at all. I know nothing about their life now, and I couldn't care less if I'm going to be honest, I don't know anyone that actually bothers with them, we all hated them but if you knew them you would understand. _

_ It wasn't a nice place to grow up in, not that I knew any different when I was younger. We never had friends round; I didn't really have any friends when I was at school, always the outcast amongst the others. My only friend was this one girl, she wasn't exactly normal to begin with; there was something not quite right about her. She would be really off with me sometimes, like she knew something was going on in my house. I've never told anyone what actually happened in that house, no one knows and I'm not planning on letting it out. _


	2. Chapter 2

_I try not to think about it if I can help it, of course it is always at the back of my mind as it's not really something that is easily forgotten. Seriously though, who would forget the things that happened in that house? The amount of people that came in the house and never got out is uncountable. I once tried to recall all the men...the men Joe would pick up off the streets, although it makes me laugh now, he always thought we didn't know what he used to do to those boys, of course we knew. You would have to be stupid if you didn't know. _**"DON'T GO IN THE CELLAR" **_he used to shout at us, looking back on it now I understand why he would say that, the cellar is where he would take them and do...well, the stuff with them. _

_There is no point in asking me what he would do to them, I only went down once when Joe was asleep, I went down with Shelia. There was this boy; he was really quite young, no older than twenty five I'd say, he looked about fifteen. We had this torch, it was running out of batteries and it kept on flickering. Joe always though we didn't know where the key was for the cellar lock, it was under the sink in this old tin. Shelia went and got the key, there was this whimpering sound, we could hear it from upstairs. Joe and Eunice were passed out, pissed on the amounts of cheap alcohol they would buy with the little money we had. We tried as quietly as we could to go down the stairs, with the annoying flickering torch, the sound got louder coming from the boy. We started whispering to each other. His hands were tied together; he was naked and lying on this rank mattress, it stank of piss and sick. He had a blindfold on, not that it made a difference as the room was pitch black, there was no windows and the only light source was a small bulb hanging from the small damp room. I remember thinking, looking at this boy, Joe must have done this to all the boys he took home. _


	3. Chapter 3

_We never heard from the boy we let go that evening, I don't blame him for not ever returning; he did the smart thing and stayed as far away from us as he could. He was lucky in a way; he escaped before anything life threatening happened to him, unlike the other. Of course, like always we got punished for something happening. In that case, although Joe didn't know we let him go, I believed we deserved it for going behind his back; then again it's his own fucking fault. He shouldn't bring boys back, he shouldn't get so pissed and he should have never underestimated what his children could do, he thought we were stupid. _

_I never saw Michael or Shelia after I left that house when I was fifteen, it's not that I didn't want to see them; I just drifted away from them, mobile phones weren't around then so we couldn't keep in contact with each other. Julie came to live with me as I got older; she lost her job and had nowhere else to go. She always had it the worst out of all of us, not that we had it easy, but she just had a horrible time with Joe and Eunice. When I think about what they did to us, it makes me feel physically sick. _


	4. Chapter 4

_When I left that house I didn't really have anywhere to go, and at the age of fifteen you can't afford to buy a house or rent a flat. I wondered the streets for a few days, just to get my head around things, and then I took myself into a foster home and asked them if I could stay. I didn't tell them what actually happened and why I wanted to stay, they didn't ask so I just kept quiet. There were a fair amount of children in that home, all there for different reasons. Some of them were really open as to why they were there _"My mum didn't want me, she was too busy fucking my step dad to spend time on me. She'd go away weeks at a time and found this the best place for me to go, but whatever, I really don't care. They are both dicks."

_I never told anyone why I was really there. _

_One of the other kids asked me what happened to my parents. I told them that they were dead, which in a way was true. They were dead to me; they had never been alive in my eyes. Joe was a dirty bastard who did horrible things and Eunice was just as bad, why would I want to stay with them? The other kids seemed to accept that as a reasonable response, they appeared to understand, even though they didn't know the truth. _

_I used to have this dream that one day Joe and Eunice came hunting for me and when they found me they would do all those things to me that they did to those poor boys. I was scared shitless. _


	5. Chapter 5

_It's difficult to grow up in foster care. I did have my parents, and unfortunately they where still alive and kicking, much to my displeasure. I thought it would be easy to leave my shit life behind and move on, live a happier and more fulfilling life, wasn't I wrong. I didn't miss Joe and Eunice but I missed Michael, Sheila and Julie, they were the only people who treated me how the other kids at school were treated. When I was in care I never got taken to someone's house or taken out on a day trip by possible future parents. I was labelled the 'troubled' child, the child who had such a terrible upbringing that they couldn't function in a normal family environment. The child that no parent would want their own child to be like._

_In my opinion I wasn't an awfully behaved child. I was quiet and socially awkward, but after living in a house with Joe and Eunice and their dirty little secrets you can see why. I didn't cause any problems, I didn't go around swearing or hitting anyone. I just didn't talk. Being 15 and having to take yourself into foster care isn't nice, I just wanted to got away from that house and be invisible._


	6. Chapter 6

_When I was 18 the foster home suggested for me to move out and find myself a place to live and a stable job, as I was the only original children left in the home, everyone else had been fostered. They gave me a bit of money to help start that off. I found a place reasonably quickly, £60 a months which wasn't awful. I could afford it once I got a weekend job in the local supermarket. During the week I went to college and done a few shifts in the evening if they needed me, but I didn't mind as it gave me the money I needed. The social worked would come in a few times in the week to make sure I was 'getting on okay' by myself. I loved it to be honest, a place where I could just be alone and think, not have to think about anyone else but myself._

_I once saw Eunice shopping when I was working, I tried to avoid her as much as I possibly could, until she finally came up to me. _**"Excuse me love, where can I find the vodka?" **_I was in shock. She never called any of us love, she was never that nice. __**"Erm...yeah of course, sorry. It's down isle 14 next to the whiskey"**__ she nodded, smiled and walked away. She didn't know it was me. I didn't think I had changed that much in 3 years. I still looked like myself. Unless she was too pissed to even recognise me. I did feel a little relieved though. Finally the years had caught up with her, the smoking 50 a day and drinking copious amounts of cheap vodka._

_After that day of seeing Eunice, I wanted to see Joe. She what three years had done to him._

_I tried not to hate them. I felt they didn't deserve that attention. I wanted to feel a feeling of indifference, as I really couldn't care less if something had happened to them._

_After seeing Eunice that Sunday morning and her not recognising me, I knew I was free from them and I could move on._


End file.
